ABSTRACT

This chapter investigates the definition of crowdsourcing and crowdsourcing translation, their cultural implication in the context of nowadays China, and traces the development of crowdsourcing translation communities in the past few years. The term is a compound word of "crowd" and "outsourcing", with the latter being made use of in the established business institutions as a way of production or problem solving. A series of discussions on how to define "crowdsourcing" emerged around 2010, and the definitions vary with different contexts. Since 2010, articles have endeavored to review the existing discussions and definitions of crowdsourcing. The chapter discusses the social-cultural background for the rise of crowdsourcing translation in China, as well as how the major crowdsourcing translation communities have developed and evolved. Many factors make crowdsourcing translation a prosperous field for contemporary China and the world.